Rural entrepreneurship or entrepreneurship in the rural – between place and space

Abstract

Purpose -This article investigates how rural entrepreneurship engages with place and space.It explores the concept of "rural" as a socio-spatial concept in rural entrepreneurship, and illustrates the importance of distinguishing between ideal types of rural entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach -The article uses concepts from human geography to develop two ideal types of entrepreneurship in rural areas. Ideal types constitute powerful heuristics for research and are used here to connect and review existing literature on rural entrepreneurship and rural development as well as to develop new research avenue and questions.Findings -Two ideal types are developed (i) entrepreneurship in the rural and (ii) rural entrepreneurship. The former represents entrepreneurial activities that have limited embeddedness and enact a profit-oriented and mobile logic of space. The latter represents entrepreneurial activities that leverage local resources to re-connect place to space. While both types contribute to local development, the latter holds the potential for an optimized use of the resources in the rural area, and these ventures are unlikely to relocate even if economic rationality would suggest it.Research limitations/implications -The conceptual distinction allows for engaging more deeply with the diversity of entrepreneurial activities in rural areas. It increases our understanding of entrepreneurial processes and their impact on local economic development.Originality/value -This study contributes to the understanding of the localized processes of entrepreneurship and how these processes are enabled and constrained by the immediate context or "place". The paper weaves space and place in order to show the importance of context for entrepreneurship, which responds to the recent calls for contextualizing entrepreneurship research and theories. In addition ideal types can be a useful device for further research and serve as a platform for developing rural policy.

Conceptualising animation in rural communities: the Village SOS case

“…See also Korsgaard, Müller, and Tanvig (2015a), who distinguish two types of entrepreneurship: 'activities that engage with their spatial location as a space for profit' (Korsgaard, Müller, and Tanvig 2015a, 11) and activities that engage with the social life of the place to make it more valuable and meaningful for the local community (Korsgaard, Müller, and Tanvig 2015a, 17). The former clearly is entrepreneurship, and may indeed count as community entrepreneurship if it is oriented towards benefiting the community (Somerville and McElwee 2011), but it does not look like animatorship because it is about directly adding value (profit).…”

Rural–Urban Linkages and Sustainable Regional Development: The Role of Entrepreneurs in Linking Peripheries and Centers

“…Traditionally, studies of regional economic development have either focused on urban or rural areas [1,2] rather than the interdependencies between these two different types of territories. There also has even been a rigid division between "rural" and "urban" when it comes to studies of entrepreneurship and associated spatial dynamics [1,[3][4][5] without much consideration of linkages of, for example, entrepreneurs located in rural areas who actively engage with markets in urban areas.…”

Institutional Framework for Support of Local Entrepreneurship Within Leader Approach in Slovakia

“…In addition, some authors argue that institutions are crucial mediators of the regional policies in specifi c regional contexts. Thus, institutions can be the answer to the question, why the formal rules of regulation and policies not always lead to the intended outcomes (20) . There are few most signifi cant segments of national institutional systems that determine productivity growth and long-term well being of societies.…”

“…When designing such policy, it is important to envisage policymaking and policy implementation as a multilevel affair that requires a coordinated strategy across geographies (23) . In the context of the EU, the LEADER approach is one example of a program that supports bottom-up mechanisms that specifi cally aim at encouraging people and local enterprises to become aware of their power to infl uence their own life situations and giving them the (14) Johannisson, Dahlstrand (2009) (15) Gaddefors, Cronsell (2009) (16) Foss and Klein (2012) (17) Soliva (2007) (18) Hudson (2010) (19) Balcerzak, Pietrzak (2016) (20) Glückler, Lenz (2016) (21) Balcerzak, Pietrzak (2016) (22) Maia (2002) (23) Hjalager, Nielsen, Simon (2013) means to change their situations according to their own reconciled will and direction (24) , (25) . According to the entrepreneurial paradigm, the individual business owner or entrepreneur is the fundamental key to economic and job growth.…”